Stanley's Adventures in the Wilds of Africa Part 21

THE FRUITS OF VICTORY.

After victory, the fruits of victory; and to secure the latter is often more difficult than to win the former. The soldier may conquer a realm; it requires the statesman to organize and establish sovereignty. We may be entranced with enthusiasm at the daring of the explorer; we must bow with respect to the man who transformed a wilderness into a peaceful field of industry and commerce. Doubtless, at the end of his great Congo campaign, in 1878, Mr. Stanley longed for rest and home. Up to that time all his life had been a wandering, chiefly amid dangers and discomforts.

He had written his name among those of the world's foremost explorers.

Well might he have considered his task accomplished, and have turned his way toward scenes of rest and pleasure. Instead of that, all these great deeds were but the prelude to his real life-work.

Early in November, 1878, Mr. Stanley was invited by Leopold, King of the Belgians, to visit the royal palace at Brussels, on a certain day and at a certain hour. He went. He found a.s.sembled to meet him a large number of persons of note from all parts of the world, mostly men interested in commerce and finance. The object of the meeting was to promote the enterprise of studying what might best be done with the Congo River and its vast basin. Mr. Stanley was to tell them of the country, and they were to consider how to open it up to trade and civilization. "I have,"

said the explorer, "pa.s.sed through a land watered by the largest river of the African continent, and that land knows no owner. A word to the wise is sufficient. You have cloths and hardware, and gla.s.sware and gunpowder, and those millions of natives have ivory and gums and rubber and dyestuffs, and in barter there is good profit!"

This was a tempting prospect, and a course of action was soon fixed upon. A company was formed, one hundred thousand dollars capital was subscribed on the spot, and Mr. Stanley was commissioned to organize, equip and lead an expedition. He was to open up a road through the Congo country to the heart of Africa. He was to erect stations, according to the means furnished, along the overland route for the convenience of the transport and the European staff in charge, and to establish steam communication wherever available and safe. The stations were to be commodious, and sufficient for all demands that were likely to be made on them. Ground was to be leased or purchased adjoining the stations, so as to make them in time self-supporting. Land along each side of the route was also to be secured, to prevent persons ill-disposed toward the company from interfering with its plans. The whole scheme was founded on the ideas of peace and equity. The expedition was to make its way by paying, not by fighting.

Mr. Stanley went to work promptly and energetically. This meeting was held on November 25th. The directors of the enterprise met again on December 9th. On January 2d, 1879, Mr. Stanley laid before them plans and estimates for the first six months' work, and on January 23d he was on his way to Zanzibar. It was, of course, desirable to have experienced men a.s.sociated with him, so he sought out as many of his old comrades as possible. In that work some time was spent, but in the latter part of May he left Zanzibar in the steamer "Albion," which had been chartered for the use of the expedition. He had with him sixty-eight men, recruited at Zanzibar, of whom forty-five had accompanied him on his former journey down the Congo. At nine o'clock in the morning of August 14th he sighted land at the mouth of the Congo, and soon after was at anchor near the Dutch settlement at Banana Point. Here he met, for the first time, the other officers chosen to go with him on the expedition.

There were one American, two Englishmen, two Danes, five Belgians, and one Frenchman. In the harbor was a small fleet of steamers intended for the expedition, and on sh.o.r.e was a considerable store of goods for bartering with the natives.

On August 21st, seven days after Mr. Stanley's arrival at Banana, the vessels of the expedition, consisting of the "Albion" and eight other craft of various sizes (the largest being the steel twin screw steamer "La Belgique," sixty-five feet long and eleven feet beam; and the smallest the "Jeune Africaine," a screw launch, twenty-five feet long and five feet ten inches beam) steamed out of Banana Haven, and began the ascent of the n.o.ble river. Boma, once the horrible emporium of the slave-trade, was reached after a sail of eight days; a depot was formed at Mussuko, four hours higher up the stream on the south bank; and the "Albion," after making one or two trips between Mussuko and Banana Point, in order to bring up the goods which had been left behind, was released from river duty, taken down to Banana Point, coaled, and sent home, on September 17th.

So far, all had gone well. In thirty-four days it had reached its first base of operations, ninety miles from the sea. All its supplies had been brought hither in safety, and the outlook for the future was promising.

Soon after the departure of the "Albion" steps were taken to advance still further up-stream, and the next station was made at Vivi. This was six hours' sail in a nine-knot steamer above Boma. The site was carefully chosen, and Vivi has since become the most important station on the river. But before Mr. Stanley could commence operations in September, 1879, a palaver had to be held, and terms required to be arranged with the neighboring chiefs, of whom there were five. At the palaver the five chiefs formed a somewhat motley group. The introductions being over, the object of the expedition was explained through the medium of a _lingster_ or interpreter; proposals were made on the part of the a.s.sociation; and the chiefs, after begging a bottle of gin apiece, returned to their houses to consider what the _Mundele_, or trader, as Mr. Stanley was now called, had said to them.

On the following day they returned, and as the conference which followed was, in its general features, similar to many others that were held, we may as well use Mr. Stanley's description of it:--

"The conference began by the lingster, Ma.s.sala, describing how the chiefs had gone home and consulted together for a long time; they had agreed that if the Mundele would stay with them, that of all the land unoccupied by villages, or fields and gardens, I should make my choice, and build as many houses, and make as many roads, and do any kind of work I liked; that I should be considered as the 'Mundele' of Vivi, and no other white man should put foot on Vivi soil, which stretched from the Lufu up to the Banza Kulu district, and inland down to the Loa river, without permission from me; no native chief of inland or riverside should molest any man in my employ within the district of Vivi; help should be given for work, and the people of Vivi, such as liked, should engage themselves as workmen; anybody, white or black, native or foreign, pa.s.sing to and fro through the land, should do so freely, night and day, without let or hindrance; if any disagreement should arise between any of my people, white or black, and the people of Vivi, they, the chiefs, would promise not to try and revenge themselves, but bring their complaint before the Mundele of Vivi, that he might decide upon the right and the wrong of it; and if any of their people were caught in the act of doing wrong, then the white man shall promise that his chief shall be called to hear the case against him, and if the crime is proved the chief shall pay the fine according to custom.

"'All this,' continued Ma.s.sala, 'shall be set down in writing, and you shall read it, and the English lingster shall tell it straight to us.

But first we must settle what the chiefs shall receive in return for these concessions.'"

This was not so easily settled. Four hours were spent before the bargain was concluded, and Mr. Stanley found himself obliged to pay one hundred and sixty dollars down in cloth and a rental of ten dollars per month.

The papers confirming the agreement were then drawn up in due form, and signed by the various parties concerned in the matter.

Mr. Stanley, as "Mundele of Vivi," had no good reason to congratulate himself upon his bargain. He had, of course, secured a site for his station, but he had been compelled to pay a big price for it, and his land was a mere wilderness of rocky and barren hillsides. All the really good land at Vivi was already occupied, and the natives would not part with it. On the evening of the day on which his contract was signed he wrote in his diary: "I am not altogether pleased with my purchase. It has been most expensive, in the first place, and the rent is high.

However, necessity has compelled me to do it. It is the highest point of navigation of the Congo, opposite which a landing could be effected. The landing-place is scarcely three hundred yards long, but if the sh.o.r.es were improved by leveling, available room for s.h.i.+ps could be found for fifteen hundred yards." On the plateau near the river was room for a town of twenty thousand people, and the situation seemed salubrious. So a road was made up to the plateau, buildings erected, and a large quant.i.ty of goods brought up from Mussuko, and safely housed.

So far the expedition had had plain sailing. The Congo affords a magnificent waterway from the ocean, at Banana, up to Vivi. But a little distance above Vivi are the Livingstone Falls, rendering further navigation impossible. It was therefore necessary to build a road and make further progress overland. So work was begun on a new road, from Vivi to Isangila, fifty-two miles above, which had been chosen as the site of the next station. The country was wild and rugged, and ruled by thirty or forty different chiefs. Each of these chiefs had to be negotiated with and won over, and each in his own way. Moreover, the individual owners of farms and gardens had to be dealt with, and often paid exorbitant prices for their land. Surveying the route was a long and toilsome job. The work of clearing and grading would have been stupendous had it been designed merely to make it a wagon-road. But it was to be more than that. It was to be a road over which several of the steamboats could be transported, to be relaunched on the river above the falls. Mr. Stanley never faltered, however, and at noon of March 18th, 1880, the work of making the road was begun. On January 2d, 1881, within ten months from the actual beginning of the work, the road, fifty-two miles in length, was completed, the boats were on the sh.o.r.e at Isangila waiting to be repaired, sc.r.a.ped, and painted, and the "Royal," a small screw steamer presented to the expedition by the King of the Belgians, was steaming on the river.

From Isangila there was smooth navigation up-stream for eighty-eight miles, to the Falls of Ntombo Mataka. Adjoining the latter is the district of Manyanga, where Mr. Stanley decided to erect the next station, and on May 1st, 1881, the whole expedition was safely encamped there. Of his achievements thus far Mr. Stanley speaks thus: "We were now one hundred and forty miles above Vivi, to accomplish which distance we have been employed four hundred and thirty-six days in road-making and in conveying fifty tons of goods, with a force of sixty-eight Zanzibaris and an equal number of West Coast and inland natives. During this period we had travelled four thousand eight hundred and sixteen English miles, which, divided by the number of days occupied in this heavy transport work, gives a quotient of over eleven miles per day!"

This expedition was intended to reach, as its farthest point, Stanley Pool, which was still ninety-five miles away, and every mile was full of difficulties. The river was not navigable, so an overland road had to be surveyed, "palavered" for, purchased and built, and the boats dragged over it. Worse still, Mr. Stanley was stricken down with fever, and for a long time lay on the brink of the grave. But even from his sick-bed he continued to direct affairs and to inspire his followers with his own unshaken faith in the success of the enterprise. So, by December 3d, 1881, the expedition was safe at Stanley Pool with the steamer "En Avant" launched in the Bay of Kintamo, beyond which were thousands of miles of navigable water. The new station was founded on Leopold Hill, a fine site overlooking the river, and was named Leopoldville, in honor of the royal patron of the enterprise. Doubtless this place will become the chief centre of Central African commerce. Its situation is magnificent.

The climate is salubrious. The surrounding natives are friendly. Other stations have since been founded, further up the river, all tributary to Leopoldville. The most distant of them is on the island of Wane Rusari, at the foot of Stanley Falls, one thousand and sixty-eight miles from Leopoldville.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE CONGO FREE STATE.

Mr. Stanley's discoveries, and the enterprise of the "Committee for the Study of the Upper Congo"--which was the real name of the company under which he was sent out--soon attracted universal attention, and that, too, of a most practical kind. It became evident that the Congo Valley must have a fixed and potent government. King Leopold did not desire to a.s.sume the sole responsibility, nor, indeed, would the other European powers have agreed to his transform so large a slice of the African continent into a Belgian colony. Accordingly, an international conference was summoned to meet at Berlin, and the result of its deliberations was the erection of the entire valley into a potentially independent commonwealth, called the Congo Free State. On February 25th, 1885, treaty was signed by the representatives of the United States and the chief European powers. A Const.i.tution and Government were provided for the new state, with King Leopold at its head, under the protection of the treaty-signing powers. Thenceforward civilization made rapid progress. The state was admitted to the International Postal Union, and post-offices were opened at Banana, Boma, Vivi, and elsewhere. Courts, schools, etc., were also established. A railroad has been constructed over the route of Mr. Stanley's roads around the cataracts, connecting with the steamer routes, and making an unbroken line of steam transportation from Stanley Falls to the Atlantic Ocean.

The entire area of the Congo basin is estimated by Mr. Stanley at one million five hundred and eight thousand square miles. Some of it is claimed by France, some by Portugal, and some is yet unapportioned. But the overwhelming bulk, one million sixty-five thousand and two hundred square miles, belongs to the Congo Free State. It has not all yet been surveyed, of course, but its character is pretty well known. It has vast forests, extensive and fertile plains, and unsurpa.s.sed systems of lakes and rivers. Its lakes cover thirty-one thousand seven hundred square miles; among them being Lakes Leopold II., Muta Nzige, Tanganyika, Bangweola, and Mweru. The Congo, of course, is the princ.i.p.al river. It is one of the five or six longest streams in the world, and in point of volume surpa.s.ses all but the Amazon.

Unlike the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, Ganges, Volga, and, indeed, almost all other great rivers, the Congo has no delta. It discharges itself by a single unbroken estuary seven miles and a half broad, in many places over two hundred fathoms deep, and with a current of from five to seven knots an hour. The volume of water brought down has been variously estimated; the lowest estimate being two million cubic feet per second.

The Mississippi, when at the height of its March flood, has an outflow of one million one hundred and fifty thousand cubic feet per second; so that its volume must be very greatly exceeded by that of the Congo.

The scenery along the banks of the Congo is affirmed by all who have seen it to be magnificent. Mr. Stanley has seen none to equal it. In his opinion neither the Indus nor the Ganges, the Nile nor the Niger, nor any of the rivers of North or South America has any glories of mountain or foliage or sunlight which are not greatly excelled by those of his favorite river, and many of the finest pa.s.sages in his volumes are devoted to descriptions of the beauty and magnificence seen along its banks.

The population of the Free State of the Congo Mr. Stanley estimates at about forty-five millions. According to the latest trustworthy calculations, the population of the whole of Africa is represented by two hundred millions. Some place it at one hundred and seventy millions.

The data on which these calculations are based are, of course, imperfect, and Mr. Stanley's seem to have been based chiefly upon the density of population he found on the banks of the upper Congo. But in other parts, and especially away from the rivers, there must be large tracts of country where the population is much less dense than it is along the banks of the Congo, and any generalization for the whole of the country, based upon the latter, must manifestly give too high a figure.

Of the climate of the country, Mr. Stanley is ent.i.tled to speak with authority, and justly, as no European has had so large an experience of it. With care as to food, clothing, and exposure, Europeans, it would seem, may live as long, and enjoy as good health on the banks of the Congo as they may in most other places. But care is absolutely requisite; without it the climate proves as hurtful as the climate of the west coast of Africa is generally said to be.

As a field for commerce, Mr. Stanley speaks of the country in the most glowing terms, and believes that it excels all other known lands for the number and rare variety of precious gifts with which nature has endowed it. He says: "The forests on the banks of the Congo are filled with precious redwood, lignum vitae, mahogany, and fragrant gum-trees. At their base may be found inexhaustible quant.i.ties of fossil gum, with which the carriages and furniture of civilized countries are varnished; their boles exude myrrh and frankincense; their foliage is draped with orchilla-weed, useful for dye. The redwood, when cut down, chipped and rasped, produces a deep crimson powder, giving a valuable coloring; the creepers, which hang in festoons from tree to tree, are generally those from which india-rubber is produced (the best of which is worth fifty cents per lb.); the nuts of the oil palm give forth a b.u.t.ter, a staple article of commerce; while the fibres of others will make the best cordage. Among the wild shrubs is frequently found the coffee-plant. In its plains, jungle, and swamp luxuriate the elephants, whose tusk furnishes ivory worth from $2.00 to $2.75 per lb.; its waters teem with numberless herds of hippopotami, whose tusks are also valuable; furs of the lion, leopard, monkey, otter; hides of antelope, buffalo, goat, cattle, etc., may also be obtained. But, what is of far more value, it possesses over forty millions of moderately industrious and workable people. The copper of Lake Superior is rivaled by that of the Kwilu-Niadi Valley, and of Bembe. Rice, cotton, tobacco, maize, coffee, sugar, and wheat would thrive equally well in the broad plains of the Congo. I have heard of gold and silver, but this statement requires corroboration, and I am not disposed to touch upon what I do not personally know. A large portion of the Congo basin, at present inaccessible to the immigrant, is blessed with a temperature under which Europeans may thrive and multiply. There is no portion of it where the European trader may not fix his residence for years, and develop commerce to his own profit with as little risk as is incurred in India."

Such is the country which the skill, tact, courage, and, in brief, the genius of Mr. Stanley have rescued from the degradation and barbarism of ages, and given a place among the great nations of the world. It is his fame to have been not merely an intrepid explorer, not merely a peaceful and almost bloodless conqueror, but in fully equal measure a civilizer, a trade-bearer, a statesman; the finder, the founder, and the builder of a great and mighty state.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

EMIN, THE LAST OF THE SOUDAN HEROES.

Mr. Stanley returned to civilization, and in 1886 revisited America for the first time in thirteen years. He was received with the highest honors, and the lectures which he delivered were attended by crowded and delighted audiences. It seemed at last as though he were to enjoy a considerable period of rest. He had opened up the Dark Continent, and founded the Congo Free State on a secure basis. He might now direct its operations from London or Brussels, and spend his years in well-won ease. But this was not to be. He was abruptly summoned to undertake one of the most arduous of all his tasks, which was to lead an expedition to the relief of Emin Pasha at Wadelai, on the Nile.

The history of Emin Pasha is a most romantic and n.o.ble one. His real name is Edward Schnitzer, and he was born in 1840 at Oppeln, in Silesia.

His father, a merchant, died in 1845, and three years before that date the family removed to Neisse. When Edward Schnitzer had pa.s.sed through the gymnasium at Neisse he devoted himself to the study of medicine at the University of Breslau. During the years 1863 and 1864 he pursued his studies at the Berlin Academy. The desire for adventure and an exceptional taste for natural sciences induced the young medical student to seek a field for his calling abroad. He, therefore, at the end of 1864, left Berlin with the intention of obtaining a post of physician in Turkey. Chance carried him to Antivari and then to Scutari. Here he soon managed to attract the attention of Valis Ismael Pasha Haggi, and was received into the following of that dignitary, who, in his official position, had to travel through the various provinces of the empire.

When, in this way, Dr. Schnitzer had learned to know Armenians, Syrians, and Arabians, he finally reached Constantinople, where the Pasha died in 1873. In the summer of 1875 Dr. Schnitzer returned to Neisse; but after a few months the old pa.s.sion for travel again came over him, and he betook himself to Egypt, where favorable prospects were opened out to him. With the beginning of the year 1876 he appears as "Dr. Emin Effendi," enters the Egyptian service, and places himself at the disposal of the Governor-General of the Soudan. In the post there given him Dr. Emin met with Gordon, who two years before (1874) had been intrusted with the administration of the newly-created Equatorial province. Gordon sent him on tours of inspection through the territory and on repeated missions to King M'tesa at Uganda. When Gordon Pasha, two years later, became administrator of all territory lying outside the narrower limits of Egypt, Dr. Emin Effendi received the post of commander at Lado, together with the government of the Equatorial province. With how much fidelity and self-denial he devoted himself to his task is well known.

During the first three years of his term he drove out the slave-traders from a populous region with six million inhabitants. He converted a deficiency of revenues into a surplus. He conducted the government on the lines marked out by General Gordon, and was equally modest, disinterested, and conscientious. When the Mahdi's rebellion broke out, a governor-general of another stamp was at Khartoum. Emin's warning from the remote South pa.s.sed unheeded. Hicks' army, recruited from Arabi's demoralized regiments, was ma.s.sacred; the Egyptian garrisons throughout the Soudan were abandoned to their fate; atrocious campaigns of unnecessary bloodshed were fought on the seaboard, and General Gordon was sent to Khartoum to perish miserably while waiting for a relief expedition that crawled by slow stages up the Nile, and was too late to be of practical service. During all these years of stupid misgovernment and wasted blood Emin remained at his post. When the death of General Gordon and the retreat of Lord Wolseley's army wiped out the last vestige of Egyptian rule in the regions of the Upper Nile, the Equatorial Provinces were cut off, neglected, and forgotten.

It then became impossible for Emin to communicate with the Egyptian Government, and he was practically lost to the world. He was dependent upon his own resources in a region encompa.s.sed by hostile tribes. He might easily have cut his way out to safety, by the way of the Congo or Zanzibar, with the best of his troops, leaving the women and children behind to their fate. But this he scorned to do. He stood at his post, and bravely upheld the standard of civilization in Africa. He had with him about four thousand troops at the outset. He organized auxiliary forces of native soldiers; he was constantly engaged in warfare with surrounding tribes; he garrisoned a dozen river stations lying long distances apart; his ammunition ran low, and he lacked the money needed for paying his small army. But, in the face of manifold difficulties and dangers, he maintained his position, governed the country well, and taught the natives how to raise cotton, rice, indigo, and coffee, and also how to weave cloth, and make shoes, candles, soap, and many articles of commerce. He vaccinated the natives by the thousand, in order to stamp out small-pox; he opened the first hospital known in that quarter; he established a regular post-route with forty offices; he made important geographical discoveries in the basin of the Albert Lake; and in many ways demonstrated his capacity for governing barbarous races.

The last European who visited him was Dr. Junker, the German traveller, who parted from him at Wadelai on January 1st, 1886. His position was then more favorable, but he had been reduced at one time to extremities, his soldiers having escaped by a desperate sortie, cutting their way through the enemy after they had been many days without food, and "when the last torn leather of the last boot had been eaten." Letters written by him in October, 1886, at Wadelai, describing his geographical discoveries, were received in England in 1887, with a contributed article for a Scotch scientific journal. The provisions and ammunition sent to him by Dr. Junker had had a very encouraging effect upon his troops. He wrote: "I am still holding out here, and will not forsake my people."

The betrayal of Gordon at Khartoum by the British Government had so disgusted and exasperated decent public opinion in England that a popular demand was made for the rescue of Emin. The Government took no step other than to allow a small grant of money to be made from the Egyptian treasury. But private subscriptions furnished an ample sum, and an "Emin Relief Committee" was formed to press the work.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

STANLEY TO THE RESCUE.

Mr. Stanley arrived in New York, after his thirteen years' absence, on November 27th, 1886. On December 12th of the same year he was requested by the King of the Belgians to return immediately to Europe. He did so, and was commissioned to head the expedition then being formed for the relief of Emin Pasha. There was much discussion as to the route to be taken, most authorities favoring that overland from Zanzibar. But Mr.

Stanley determined upon the Congo, and he described the character of the expedition as follows:

"The expedition is non-military--that is to say, its purpose is not to fight, destroy, or waste; its purpose is to save, to relieve distress, to carry comfort. Emin Pasha may be a good man, a brave officer, a gallant fellow deserving of a strong effort of relief, but I decline to believe, and I have not been able to gather from any one in England an impression, that his life, or the lives of the few hundreds under him, would overbalance the lives of thousands of natives, and the devastation of immense tracts of country which an expedition strictly military would naturally cause. The expedition is a mere powerful caravan, armed with rifles for the purpose of insuring the safe conduct of the ammunition to Emin Pasha, and for the more certain protection of his people during the retreat home. But it also has means of purchasing the friends.h.i.+p of tribes and chiefs, of buying food and paying its way liberally."